Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Essentials of Islamic Spirituality- The Signs of a Qualified Shaykh
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The shaykh is a controversial topic, but people can do it when sitting together. The shaykh is connected to their shaykh's heart and can be done even when sitting together. The shaykh is linked to their "medial state" and can be carried on in a state of joy. The course on Islam covers topics like Islam, including its importance in Islam and its importance in most important topics in Islam. The course provides a sustained study and a longer course for further learning.
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Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in amma
dha'afin.
I think, was it the signs of a
qualified Shaykh is next.
A Shaykh is one who has full knowledge
and experience of spiritual ailments, amrād dātina.
How do they get that?
Because they've studied them and they've had the
training about them with their own Shaykh, right?
And attributes, he also understands the attributes of
vice and virtue.
Because people are going to come with those
kind of questions, I'm struggling with this, they
should be able to give them some kind
of remedy or some kind of solution.
I mean, it's up to the murid to
follow that through and how diligently they follow
it through.
Most murids are looking for easy, right?
And sometimes what happens is that there's an
inspiration that goes with it sometimes, especially when
it's fresh, there's an inspiration.
And that helps a lot, but that's not
sustainable unless you really work hard on it
yourself.
At the end of the day, the Shaykh
can be anybody, but if you're not a
committed murid, nothing's going to happen.
At the same time, if you're a committed
murid, you'll get so far, but if you
don't have the Shaykh to direct you completely,
then you're going to have an issue as
well.
So I think that's what he's referring to.
He should further be able to distinguish between
their similarities.
Similarity between two different dhikrs, they have to
be nuanced.
And, oh, this looks the same, but this
is probably because of this, and this is
probably because of that.
He should further be able to distinguish, and
he must have perfect ability in devising plans
and prescriptions for the acquisition of the attributes
of virtue and the elimination of the attributes
of vice.
He has to be aware of the progress
and retrogress of these attributes.
He must be well-versed in the hazards
of the lower self and shaitan, the intuitive
perceptions and feelings as well pertaining to the
angels and the divine being.
So, for example, the other day somebody called
and he said that, especially if I do
dhikr or something, I start seeing certain colours.
Or sometimes if I'm deeply thinking about something,
I end up seeing some vision of different
colours and things.
So he went to a Shaykh and he
said that you've got psychosis.
I was like, please, you don't have psychosis.
I go, is it fear, frightful?
Do you do crazy things?
And no, it just gives me a kind
of, it either makes me feel good, so
it's not psychosis at all.
Not that you should base anything on there
necessarily, but it's definitely not psychosis.
And I don't think it's from the shaitan,
it's not making you do anything wrong.
You're just probably tapped into a certain wavelength
where these things are being engendered and you
can see them.
It doesn't open for everybody.
Colours don't open for everybody.
There's just some people, they say, for example,
that if you do muraqabah on certain lata
'if, right, so if you do muraqabah on
latifatul qalb, which is on the heart one,
it could represent itself in a vision of
a certain colour.
Because a certain effect of the body is
happening psychologically and spiritually.
You're tapping into a certain spiritual wavelength that
your eyes are generally filtered, doesn't allow you
to see it, whereas that one allows you
to see it.
Not that you're going to get anything necessarily
great because of it, if you don't do
anything with it.
I've been told about certain families, sayyid families,
that they're, masha'Allah, just very ripe and
they kindle very easily with dhikr.
Right, so one shaykh was telling me about
some murids who are sayyids in Peshawar and
he said they're just amazing.
They do a bit of dhikr and they
just get kindled in the sense that, masha
'Allah, like, you know, they just find it
much easier, whereas other people just have gathafah.
So they've got this thick barrier inside that
just takes longer to get rid of.
Right, at the end of the day, what
you have to realise is that, and this
is what you have to think, this is
the adab of tasawwuf, is that while Allah
is the provider, the reason you're focusing on
a shaykh is that Allah is using that
shaykh as a conduit to provide you.
So the idea, I mean the technical idea,
is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's light
is passing through to the Prophet ﷺ's heart,
through the mashayikh and down, through your shaykh
and to yourself.
So that's kind of the idea.
That's why some Naqshbandis came up with this
concept of tasawwurus shaykh.
All right, and what that basically means is
that initially when you sit and do muraqabah,
you need to focus on your shaykh, not
Allah.
Right, which sounds highly controversial, but what they're
saying is that this is just the wasila,
that you focus on your shaykh because you
can see your shaykh.
You know what he looks like, there's something
to imagine and visualize, right, what he looks
like and so on.
Right, that you just imagine your shaykh watching
you and you need to be careful and
you know, and then eventually you switch that
with Allah because you learn to focus with
somebody that's imminent and what you can see
to something that you cannot see.
Because if you try to focus on Allah,
it's difficult.
But we generally don't tell people to focus
on Allah, so we don't do that.
Right, saying that we're not going to do
tasawwur shaykh is controversial, but I can see
how it's acceptable, right, you know, how it
could be acceptable as long as you do
it properly, but I can also see how
it's controversial.
What they say instead of that, what you
should think and do is when you're sitting
with your shaykh, then you have to imagine
that your heart is connected to your shaykh's
heart.
So you do what they call raabitatul qalb,
so you're connecting your heart to the heart
and you're assuming that Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala's rahmah when it comes down, it's coming
through the mashaykh and your shaykh's got an
outpouring of it and from that the faith
is coming into your heart when you're with
your shaykh.
Some people can do it even when they're
not with their shaykh.
In fact, then the reverse is tawajju, when
the shaykh has to provide tawajju.
There's a certain way of doing that that
they don't reveal that unless you become a
shaykh generally, right, because people can use it
in the wrong way and just sometimes affect
people.
So if the ayin is haqq, then why
can't positive ayin be haqq as well?
If negative ayin is haqq, right?
They say that unki ek nazar ne usko
Fudayl ibn Uayyad bana diya.
You know, like ek nazar pari and you
know, one glance of his just turned it.
Uska qaya palat gayi.
These are these various idioms that they use,
right?
So he's saying that he must be able
to distinguish these various intuitive and extrasensory feelings
and perceptions.
You need to be able to distinguish between
whether somebody's got some jadu on him or
somebody's got some serious mashallah, barakah and faith,
you know, on what they're seeing.
For example, one of the guys in my
room in Darul Umar, we were probably about
14 years old.
He was quite a joshila person, right?
Quite an animated kind of individual.
He decided that I'm going to go and
do, you know, you used to see, we
used to go into the zikr room and
you're told that you're not allowed to do
that zikr.
La ilaha illallah, unless you get ijazat for
it, right?
Because it's given to you and then you
have to adjust it because it's like medicine,
it could work out.
For example, the people say through experience that
if you read la ilaha illallah anta subhanaka
inni kuntu minal zalimin, multiple times, it's going
to be very hot for you as a
very heating effect.
And your body might not be able to,
because everybody's different.
Whereas Darul Sharif, you can do in abundance
and it will have, it won't affect the
neutral states.
It's kind of really interesting that these things
have different ta'feer and effects and efficacies.
So this guy started doing la ilaha illallah
in a, it was a weekend, classes were
empty and dark, winter, like four o'clock
or whatever after maghrib.
And he said, I just started seeing things,
right?
So sometimes you do see things, sometimes you
can have a hal.
When you do zikr, sometimes you can fall
into a state where you lose yourself because
you've kind of, your spirit has ascended, your
ruh has ascended to mal'ul ala, or
to the, what they call the madhufoot or
jabaroot or, you know, to the basically higher
realms.
So you lose yourself, so you're not aware
of what's going on around you.
You don't want that state though, that's not
something you need to be looking for.
Because that's the state of, that could become
the state of jathib.
That's when a person become majzoob.
When a person become, if they can't help
themselves, then of course they, if they do
say anything crazy or whatever, they sometimes are
known to say crazy things, they're ma'zoob
anyway, right?
But that's not considered to be praiseworthy state
to reach or something that you need to
try to acquire.
Our purpose is that you carry on living
in the world and you be connected to
Allah and you're multitasking in that regard.
Like it becomes a second nature, it becomes
like your breath.
That's the purpose of it.
So shaykhs need to be able to understand
the difference between what people are feeling.
There's one woman who called me, her family
called me first up, please talk to her,
she's going to call you.
She's married this guy.
And she said that he's a wali of
Allah, but we've gotten into drugs and *
and everything.
But it just feels so good when you're
with him.
He's a wali of Allah.
I know he's a wali of Allah.
Please.
I go, please, like just get it.
You can't be a wali of Allah and
persist on these things.
If it was a one-off, chalo teekeh.
Maybe possible.
But if you are saying that, it's just
totally deluded.
Because I don't know, maybe it was, there
have been some crazy Sufis or weird people
in the past that have used hashish and
other things to to get themselves going.
There's also a drug that the ISIS use
frequently.
There's a drug, there's a pill, I forget
what it's called.
Prince Ghazi's mentioned it in his book on,
you know, life.
And it just fires you up.
And you don't see reality, you get really
excited and you can just go in and
do a mission.
So there's lots of things like that.
These are artificial means, obviously.
But you also don't want yourself to fall
into that because that's not something you should
be looking for.
That's why in a gathering, we get some
people like Allah.
They say, no, Naqshbandi is like, it's called
bandarko.
Should all be happening inside.
You shouldn't be revealing to the world because
then they get lots of issues with that.
Some people are, they just can't handle it.
So they just go into a trance, almost.
They go into a hal, they call it.
So it is therefore in the shape of
the path to be one who is qualified
knowledge of and a mujtahid in this field.
I mean, he's asking for a lot, by
the way.
He's asking for some mujtahid and great if
you could and possess natural ability and internal
propensity in it.
Was always very, very nuanced.
Okay, if he has acquired the path by
a mere self study of books on the
soul or by listening to others, he will
destroy the seeker whom he is guiding because
it's all theory.
He's never seen it practiced.
He's never experienced it.
So it's all theory.
All right.
Yeah.
Captain pill.
You know, it's because he will not be.
I mean, how does it work?
I mean, how does it make you feel?
I mean, does it really make you like,
really feel you're not trying to because he
will not be in a position to correctly
diagnose the various states of the seeker.
If you look at books like.
And there's other books like if you look
at the book, the book to battle Shakespeare,
you'll see that they'll come that they'll.
Send the lettering about or ask a question
that this is my issue.
And then they respond.
And it's quite amazing the way they do
this.
This response of these spiritual ailments.
Right.
May Allah have mercy on him.
Briefly list the signs of a complete and
qualified shape.
His Dean religion resembles the deans of the
messenger.
You know, the messengers.
He prescribes cures as physicians have the ability
to he has a.
A prescription pad and he can, you know,
in his own way, you know, and his
management and control is that of kings.
The exposition of the above points is as
follows.
Is given ten points.
We can.
Number one, he should possess the necessary knowledge
of the Dean, which he must have acquired
either by formal pursuit of such knowledge or
from remaining in the company of.
Firmly grounded scholars.
You don't have to be a formal island,
but you better know your father line.
And you better know your.
OK.
Like, how do you know that wasn't a
formal island and there's others as well.
Number two, he must be a deputy Khalifa
of a qualified shake and attach to a
legitimate order.
Unfortunately, there are people who want to become
sheikhs before their time, they've not been given
by anybody.
And like there was one on, he says,
like we provide.
Spiritual guidance and that'll be and so on.
So somebody took them up on that, that
who's who Jeff is from.
He didn't.
So then you have to change it.
He says there's some people who want to
become a sheikh and a mufti and a
judge.
And I had this and then so on
altogether.
So would it be wrong to say just
as a general, like a Molana, whose job
is to be a mom or whatever his
role?
He can give spiritual basic spiritual guidance, but
not to advertise it as.
No, no, no, no.
You can give spiritual guidance, but he can't
give this formalized guidance because that has to
be done with knowledge.
So you could give people like take part.
You could say everybody can say person was
a speaker.
That's paracetamol.
Everybody knows that creamy for five.
All right.
You could even say that.
OK, I see that you probably got an
infection.
Take some antibiotics.
You know that much.
You could say anybody can say that.
You know, you can't tell anybody.
Quran put away, you know, this much.
They could do.
No problem.
The answer complicated things.
That's when it becomes an issue.
But even then, if somebody has a complication
that comes to you and he consults somebody
accomplished and they give them, that's fine.
As long as you're not claiming anything.
He should be upright and pious, refraining from
major sins and from continuously committing minor sins
as well.
He must have derived spiritual benefit by remaining
in the company of a shaykh for an
adequate period of time.
Such companionship can either come through physically being
in the shaykh's presence or through correspondence.
Doing constant touch.
All right.
The people of knowledge and understanding hold him
in high esteem and resort to him in
matters.
So he can't just be somebody self-claiming
all of these things.
And sometimes the shaykh dies and you got
claiming of Khilafah.
Who's going to challenge you?
Shaykh didn't leave a list, didn't tell anybody
else.
Could happen, right?
Or he did have you as a Khalifa,
but then you're messed up afterwards.
There's so many, they mess up afterwards.
Right.
So that I consider this is something I
tell everybody.
The people of knowledge and ulema and understanding
must hold him in decent esteem and resort
to him in matters.
Maybe not that, but at least hold him
and respect him.
Number six, his companionship increases one's desire in
you for the hereafter and divine love and
decreases one love for the world.
The majority of his disciples are followers of
the Sharia.
You see that effect that people around him
are generally followers of the Sharia.
Their condition conforming to the demands of the
Sharia, for the most part.
You know, initially, somebody might not have a
beard or whatever.
And then eventually, mashallah, otherwise, if you're constantly
got some fusak around you and you're the
big shaykh, then that just tells you where
you are.
That they've affected you.
And number eight, he's without greed and desire
for worldly gain and benefits.
Number nine, he engages in remembrance and devotering
himself.
He doesn't pray, doesn't do the zikr.
He does not, number ten, he does not
leave his disciples unfettered.
But reprimands them when the need arises and
treats every in accordance with their respective abilities.
So he's not somebody to just please the
people.
He knows how to do it.
The one in whom these attributes exist is
worthy of being a shaykh, and he should
be considered a wonderful alchemy, meaning a wonderful
solution for you.
His companionship and service are, in fact, priceless
treasures.
Once these attributes and qualities are found in
a shaykh, one should not be concerned about
miracles and unveilings.
It is not necessary that these states exist
in a qualified shaykh, meaning kashf and karamat,
nor is it necessary that he be one
who does not earn his livelihood.
And your shaykh doesn't have to be some
poor wali of Allah who just, mashallah, just
pulls money out under his prayer mat.
He could be a working class guy.
And it's amazing how one big alim has
told me about somebody he's connected to after
Hazrat, who's a working guy, because you'd never
expect him to be, but he is of
a very high caliber.
That's a bit of a difference.
But anyway, that is shaykh Kamil.
Problem is that you're hardly going to find
somebody who fits all of those things nowadays.
So then you just, you just basically get
the best you can.
Right.
That's what it is.
Okay.
So we end there.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act, to get further, an inspiration,
an encouragement, persuasion.
The next step is to actually start learning
seriously, to read books, to take on a
subject of Islam and to understand all the
subjects of Islam, at least at their basic
level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us.
And that's why we started Rayyan courses, so
that you can actually take organized lectures on
demand whenever you have free time, especially, for
example, the Islamic Essentials course that we have
on there, the Islamic Essentials Certificate, which you
take 20 short modules.
And at the end of that, inshallah, you
will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam, and you'll
feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind.
You can continue to listen to lectures, but
you need to have this more sustained study
as well.
Jazakallah Khair and Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.